Observations on the Question of Fate
by Lady-of-the-Refrigerator
Summary: As far as the official story went, Raymond was a naval officer being groomed for admiral and no one outside of his superiors knew anything more specific about his work. The reality wasn't as clear cut as that. [Pre-series to S3 , outsider POV, short chapters, eventual Lizzington, 7/8]
1. Chapter 1

AN: Updates for Meet Cute and If at First You Don't Succeed should be coming soon. Hopefully _actually_ soon, not "The Pretender: Island of the Haunted is coming soon after The Pretender 2001" soon.

* * *

Carla wasn't supposed to know anything at all about Raymond's dealings with the KGB. As far as the official story went, he was a naval officer being groomed for admiral and, while his focus was naval intelligence, no one outside of his superiors knew anything more specific about his work.

The reality wasn't as clear cut as that.

It wasn't entirely Raymond's fault that she knew. He was supposed to keep her in the dark, and he did his best, he really did, but he was at a distinct disadvantage. She paid close attention to international chatter as part of her job and she could connect the dots better than most people. She wouldn't have been an analyst worth her salt if she didn't recognize the pattern that emerged around Raymond's assignments.

(Raymond wasn't supposed to find out she was CIA when he met her, but he figured that out quickly enough, too. She supposed it made them even.)

His work became an open secret between them, spoken about only in private, and even then, in the vaguest possible terms. She knew when things went well, and she knew when they started to go bad, when he began to sink deeper and deeper into the muck and the mire.

There was nothing Carla could do about it, no words of encouragement she could offer. Raymond started out with a sort of unsentimental idealism, believing that his work was doing some good in the world, no matter how ugly it was on the surface. Dirty jobs and all that. Over time, he began to recognize that things were rotten to their very core, and gradually he transformed into a miserable, tormented man. He couldn't hide the change from her, not at home, the only place left where he could let his guard down.

Carla kept Raymond's conflicts and doubts to herself. No one asked, she didn't offer. She could have gone to Alan with her concerns, but that would open a can of worms she wasn't ready to open. She didn't think she ever would be. Facing the consequences of it was too much to contemplate.

It wasn't that she didn't trust Alan, but she knew enough about Raymond's problems to break him if word somehow got back to the wrong people, so she said nothing at all. Not even when he returned from an assignment with his back covered in third degree burns and his conscience so heavy with guilt she thought he was more likely to collapse under the weight of it than from his injuries.

She cared for Raymond as well as she could while he was on the mend. He drove away more than one nurse in sheer frustration. He was a terrible patient, but then again he always had been—anything worse than a case of the sniffles and he might as well have been dying. Which was ironic, because Carla knew he'd been trained to withstand torture. It was a slow, exasperating journey for both of them.

He spoke sometimes in his sleep while he recovered, just jumbled nonsense, mostly, but Carla soon pieced together the gist of what haunted him about the night he was injured. About the girl and her father, the gun and the fire and the burns, and all those hushed, urgent phone calls with Raymond's old friend Sam.


	2. Chapter 2

As soon as the car engine cut off, Carla braced herself, staring at the kitchen door while she waited for the lock to turn and the door to swing open.

She had been preparing for this conversation for days, poring over bank books, checking calculations, trying to convince herself the numbers were wrong, that she was just missing something obvious and everything would make sense once she asked Raymond. She knew she was deluding herself. This was simple math; her calculations couldn't possibly be _that_ wrong.

Raymond hung up his hat and coat and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek.

"What is all this?" he asked. He picked up one of the bank books, rifled through the pages, and then tossed it back on the kitchen table.

"The bank called. We've been bouncing checks. It's never happened before, I don't understand how it's possible. There should've been more than enough money in the accounts to cover our expenses. There always has been."

Raymond chewed on the inside of his lip. "Maybe it was a mistake."

"It's not a mistake, Ray. The money's gone," Carla said. "What happened? If there's something wrong, if you have a problem, it's ok, you can tell me."

Pulling out a chair, he took a seat across the table from her; he played with the edge of a bank book with his thumb. "It's not what you think it is," he said.

Carla studied him, wishing not for the first time that his poker face wasn't so good.

Ever since Raymond recovered from the fire, he'd been drinking more heavily, and she suspected he was using drugs on occasion. She wouldn't be terribly surprised to find out he gambled when he was on assignment, either. All of those were obvious reasons for the financial discrepancies.

If none of them were true, then what was? What could he have possibly done to use up so much money so quickly?

Only one alternative explanation came to mind.

"Is this about the girl?" she asked. Their eyes locked for a long, silent moment.

"She's been having nightmares," Raymond said at last.

"Nightmares cost tens of thousands of dollars? For God's sake, give the kid a teddy bear."

"A teddy bear's not going to make her forget what happened to her parents."

"What happened? Or can you not tell me? Obviously, I know about the fire, but—"

"It's… complicated. I'm not even one hundred percent sure about all the details, considering, well…" He gestured toward his back and sighed. "My people needed something from the girl's father. Her mother was willing to help us get it, but he found out before we could get close and all hell broke loose.

"Her parents fought. Physically. Which wasn't something new—her mother told me about it, it was one of the reasons she was willing to work with us—but that night it was particularly bad. There was a gun, and he certainly wouldn't hesitate to use it if he had the chance."

Carla thought about Jennifer, tucked safely in bed, and a chill ran through her. She took a slow, deep breath to ground herself.

"The girl was there to see the fight?"

"Yes."

"Did she see her father shoot her mother?"

"No. While her parents struggled with each other, she… got hold of the gun and she…" Raymond's brows furrowed and he looked away, barely able to choke out the words. "She just wanted to make the yelling stop," he finished, his voice scarcely above a whisper.

Silence fell over the two of them with the revelation of that horrible truth; Carla's stomach turned dangerously.

"How is any of that your fault?" she asked. "She was the one who pulled the trigger."

"How can I not blame myself? If I wasn't there…"

She shook her head. "You can't think like that. You were doing your job, you can't take responsibility for everything that goes wrong outside your control," she said; Raymond looked like he was going to take it as a personal challenge. "Come on. Is she really worth all this?"

" _Carla_."

"Right. You're right. I'm sorry. She's just a kid."


	3. Chapter 3

Carla woke with a jolt, startled out of a dead sleep by a hand pressed gently over her mouth.

"Shh, don't scream, it's only me," came a whispering voice, reassuring. She squinted into the darkness and met Raymond's anxious, bloodshot eyes. She nodded and he took his hand away.

"Jesus, Ray, what the hell?" she hissed.

"We need to talk."

"What, right now? It's the middle of the night. What's so important it couldn't wait until morning?"

"It's better now while it's still dark. I don't want anybody to know that I'm here."

"Why?" she asked, pushing herself up to sit against the headboard; she could only just make out the answering shrug of his shoulders. She wanted to turn on a light so she could see him properly, but since he still hadn't made a move for the lamp, she assumed he wanted to keep it off. Whether he was hiding in general or just hiding from her, she wasn't sure.

She hadn't heard from him in months. He'd been on assignment, undercover, but truth be told, their relationship had been distant long before that. His ever-increasing fear and paranoia made him very difficult to coexist with.

By the looks of him, these past few months hadn't been any kinder. Usually, he wouldn't dream of showing up after a long assignment without being freshly groomed, hair cut and face shaved. It was part of his ritual. It helped him shake off whoever he had been.

Tonight his hair was shaggy and almost reached his shoulders, his beard had grown long enough to be soft instead of scratchy, his eyes were surrounded by deep, dark circles. If she didn't know him so well she might've found him frightening, especially looming over her in the dark like he was.

 _Oh, well, at least he's clean_ , she thought, as he shifted from foot to foot, as agitated as she'd ever seen.

"Sit down before you fall down and tell me what's wrong."

Raymond sat gingerly on the edge of the bed. Carla reached for his hand, hoping it would settle him; he stared at their clasped hands as if they were something foreign and confusing for a long moment.

"I did something," he said, after a while. "Something reckless. It might have been a mistake. It was just… instinct, I don't know, I probably shouldn't have… I should have found a better way."

"What is it, Ray? What have you done?"

"It doesn't matter what I did, what matters is it's done. I can't go back even if I wanted to. It's too late."

"Why are you talking like this? You know whatever you did, we can work through it together. We always have."

"No," he said sharply. "No, we can't, Carla, not something like this. I… I don't know when I became this… thing, but it's… I…" He shook himself and looked her right in the eye.

"What I did, it'll put you in danger," he said, tightening his grip on her hand. "You have to take Jennifer and go away for a while. Make an adventure of it. You know how she loves that cabin, that's a good place to start. I'll meet up with you later if I can."

Carla scoffed. "I can't do that, Ray, I have work, Jennifer has school—"

"Of course you can do it, you have to do it. The attention will be on me right now, not on you. If we give them a reason, they'll… I can't let anyone drag you into this."

"Well, I'm sorry, but there has to be another way. You can't show up out of the blue at 2 AM and tell me I have to pick up and leave everything. I'm not going to just abandon my life, my _husband_ —"

"Carla, you don't have a choice!"

"Excuse me?"

"Please. Please don't make this into some arbitrary power play. It's a matter of life and death. If something happens to you and Jennifer because of me, I don't know what I'll do," he said; he was deathly serious, on the verge of tears, of panic.

"Ray, come on. Think about this rationally. You did something foolish. If they—whoever 'they' is—come looking for us to get revenge or-or leverage or whatever you're so worried about, wouldn't it be more suspicious if we're nowhere to be found? Wouldn't that… wouldn't that just prove we're important enough to track down?"

"Fine. All right. Don't go tomorrow, then, but promise me you'll go soon. Before Jennifer goes on Christmas break."

Carla sighed. Maybe that was an arbitrary cut-off, maybe it wasn't. He was too damn vague for his own good, or anybody else's. She could never tell when his worries were based on a legitimate threat or when he was simply being overprotective. She could humor him now and then everyone could get on with their lives.

"OK," she agreed, begrudgingly.

Raymond's body relaxed instantly; he leaned forward and pressed his lips to her forehead. "Good. If everything goes well, I'll be with you by Christmas."


	4. Chapter 4

Carla took a long drag on her cigarette, holding the smoke in her lungs for as long as she could. It did nothing to calm her nerves; she felt all the eyes in the small room, seen and unseen, focus on the slight tremor in her hand when she raised it to her mouth.

"Like I told your people already, _multiple_ times—I have no idea what it is you think he's taken. I had nothing to do with it."

The man across the table wasn't the first to question her today, but he was by far the most irritating. Smug and supercilious and wearing a suit and tie too expensive for the FBI agent he claimed to be, he acted like he knew everything there was to know about her just by looking at her.

"You seem nervous, Mrs. Reddington."

Carla let out a humorless laugh.

"You effectively kidnap me and my daughter in the middle of the night, take us to a strange place, and interrogate me for hours without letting me see her." She shook her head and took another shaky drag. "You tell me all sorts of horrible things about my husband, saying he's a criminal and treating me like you think we're in cahoots with each other… Of course I'm _nervous_. If I was fine with this, that's when you should worry."

Furiously, she stamped out her cigarette, adding to the growing pile in the ashtray on the worn table. "That was my last one. Do you have another?"

Mr. Sanctimonious motioned to someone through the one-way glass and another officer came in with a fresh pack of cigarettes. He slid them across the table to her like he was doing her a great kindness.

"I hear what you're saying, Mrs. Reddington, believe me, I do. I just find it hard to believe that such a… loving and dedicated couple wouldn't share important things with each other."

"If you were as much of an expert on Raymond Reddington as you say you are, we wouldn't even be having this conversation. It's hilarious that you think he actually tells me anything." 

* * *

Carla looked up as the interrogation door opened and bit her tongue, quite literally, to stop herself from screaming in frustration when it was Mr. Sanctimonious who walked in. She'd been hoping for another changing of the guard, to no avail.

"Look. We've been doing this for hours and hours. I'm not even going to go through the motions at this point unless you let me see my daughter."

The man wouldn't look at Carla, just moved swiftly around the table and unlocked her cuffs. "You're free to go," he said, quietly. He seemed… defeated, humbled somehow.

"I don't understand. Half an hour ago, I was public enemy number two. What changed?"

"Well, somebody showed up to talk some sense into him, that's what changed," came a familiar voice from the doorway.

"Alan!"

Carla's relief at seeing Alan Fitch's face, careworn but handsome, was short-lived. She and Jennifer were to be put in witness protection, he explained, effective immediately. Her life as she knew it was over.

"He'll try to find us," she said, half in a daze.

Alan shook his head, tried to reassure her that she and her daughter would be safe and unreachable—Raymond wouldn't even try to look for them after the scene he'd find when he went home. His voice was emotionless and perfunctory when he told her about the blood.

Carla was horrified. The only way she avoided being paralyzed by guilt was to blame everything on Raymond. If he hadn't done whatever it was he did, if he could've just kept his head down and done his job like he was supposed to, none of this ever would have happened.

Carla would be Naomi for over twenty years before they'd cross paths again.


	5. Chapter 5

Naomi's hand throbbed where that maniac Berlin cut into her. It was the only thing that kept her from slapping Raymond across the face now, sequestered in the back seat of his luxury car.

It was damn near impossible to get him to stop telling a story once he started, especially if he got up a head of steam. Even here, speeding off to God knows where with him in the middle of the night, Naomi couldn't escape it.

She'd hissed at him as soon as they started moving, told him a few choice things he could do if he ever expected a thank you from her, and he'd taken that as his cue to launch into a comprehensive account of his search for her. It had been fifteen minutes and he hadn't slowed down yet.

Every minute detail about how he was able to track her down, the convoluted money trail, the leverage he used to convince Berlin to let her go… He shared all of it with her. At least, she thought it was everything—some sort of twisted official/unofficial debriefing, considering he was apparently a criminal informant now.

That was something she never expected to live to see—the infamous Concierge of Crime singing the praises of the FBI. Or, to be more specific, one agent in particular.

"Agent Keen was… benevolent… enough to compromise her ethics in order to allow me to return Berlin's money to him in exchange for you."

"If you're so buddy-buddy with the FBI, why aren't you turning me over to them?" she asked.

He breezed past her question with barely the briefest of hesitations. "Truth be told, you owe _her_ your life more than you owe me," he explained. A certain smugness colored his countenance when he said it that Naomi found both confusing and off-putting.

Surely he would have more reason to celebrate having her in his debt than in the debt of some rank-and-file FBI agent. Who was this Agent Keen?

Wasn't she the young woman who pushed Naomi out of the path of gunfire before Berlin's hired goons had taken her? Yes, Keen did sound familiar. What did she say her first name was again?

Liz?

 _Elizabeth?_

Oh. Oh, _no_.

"She's _that_ Elizabeth."

Raymond's lips curved up into an unpleasant, self-satisfied smile. His message was clear as day: _I told you she was worth it_.

Naomi closed her eyes and leaned her head against the window. Saved— _twice!_ —by a woman who committed patricide at age four. She didn't know whether to be chastened or humiliated or resentful or all three.

"You're not hiding me from them, you're hiding me from her. Why? Afraid I'll spill all your little secrets? Or do you think I'll turn into the jealous ex from hell and ruin whatever it is you have going on with her?"

She turned and eyed him shrewdly across the back seat of the car. "That's what it is, isn't it? Are you sleeping with her? No? God, she must really be something special if you're protecting her from yourself."

Raymond's expression closed off and when he spoke again, his voice… Well. She understood why people feared him.

"For someone who claims she's not a jealous ex, you're doing a damn fine imitation."


	6. Chapter 6

The painkillers Raymond had given Naomi were starting to kick in; she felt floaty and uninhibited, even less likely to censor her thoughts than she usually was.

Judging by the look on his face, Raymond could use a few himself. She could almost hear the gears in his mind turning, thinking and overthinking the ridiculous chess game he'd created.

"If Agent Keen finds you, you're not to tell her anything," he said, imperious in a way he hadn't been while they were married.

"You think she's gonna find me? Isn't making people disappear one of your specialties?"

"As flattering as it is that you've kept up with my work, you're just going to have to take my warning for what it is."

"I'm sure your people appreciate the vote of confidence in their skills."

"I don't doubt my people, no. But I don't underestimate Agent Keen, either." He drew his finger across a shelf on the bookcase near the cabin window, examined the film of dust he disturbed with great, if feigned, interest. "She can be… persuasive… when she puts her mind to it. It would be wise of you to keep that in mind."

"So you really think it's inevitable, then. That she'll find me."

"You don't give her enough credit. She tried to kill me the day we met."

"Did she? Well, you can't just tease a story like that and not share the rest of it."

He inclined his head in acknowledgement. "I miscalculated the best way to reveal some harsh truths to her," he explained, "and I paid the price for it. I'm still paying it, actually."

"She injured you that badly?"

"Oh, no. I was fine after a blood transfusion and some minor surgery."

Naomi couldn't help but laugh at the absurdity of his nonchalant admission, as if blood transfusions were so commonplace in his life that they barely warranted any concern. "What the hell did she do to you?"

"Shoved a pen through my neck," he said, his lips curving into a faraway smile, like he was remembering the incident fondly.

Naomi's eyebrows climbed high on her forehead; she shook her head. "Brother, you've got it bad."

The moment passed. A tense silence settled over the two of them. 

* * *

He'd been right, as it turned out.

It wasn't very long at all before Elizabeth Keen had shown up on her doorstep.

She had guts, Naomi would give her that. Guts to go behind Raymond's back, to use her own resources to find this place in the middle of nowhere. This hateful place filled with memories Naomi only wanted to forget.

This was the girl she only knew through stories and fever-dream sleep-talking, the one who changed everything, even though she had no earthly clue that she had.

She'd grown up beautiful—striking, even camouflaged by the plain, unassuming hooded sweatshirt and jeans she wore. Unpredictable, too. A little wild and rangy, like Sam had always been, with just the slightest hint of danger dancing alongside the spark in her eyes. There was guilt there, too. Guilt because she only deigned to let Naomi live because /his/ life was at risk and now she had to face the reality of what she'd almost done.

Gone was the tenuous professional mask she wore the day Berlin took Naomi and in its place was a strange kind of frantic determination—she was greedy for every scrap of insight Naomi could provide.

He must have made her feel so… special.

Naomi knew the feeling well. She'd loved him once, too.

A lifetime ago, he had swept her off her feet. Dinner and cocktails and dancing. Long, passionate discussions that eventually led to long, passionate nights.

Oh, maybe it wasn't sexual between them yet, but even platonically, Raymond's attention could be incredibly intense.

Naomi suspected, however, that Elizabeth wouldn't be terribly averse to it taking a turn in that direction. Chances were she would have balked if Naomi's warnings were completely off-base. Instead she listened silently, with a look of unease on her face, as if what Naomi was saying rang all too true.

Naomi could recognize when a woman was captivated by Raymond. She wondered if he realized.

Elizabeth looked so… lost, so desperate for more from him. But she'd never get it. He just wasn't capable of connecting with someone like a normal person anymore. If he ever had been. Better that she make a break from him now than wait until she got in even deeper.

Raymond Reddington was poison. He caused death and destruction to everything he touched. Elizabeth Keen of all people should know that. She should know enough to stay away.

Well, she either didn't know or she didn't care.

Naomi suspected it was the latter.


	7. Chapter 7

Naomi never considered herself to be a tv news junkie—she had her methods and sources for keeping up with a few choice topics over the years, but cable news? That incessant parade of talking heads and sensationalism and ratings-bait shouting matches? That was just never her thing.

All that changed, however, when Elizabeth Keen shot and killed the Attorney General of the United States.

Of _course_ Keen went on the run in the aftermath and of _course_ Raymond ran with her. That was essentially the path their lives had taken since Keen was four years old and Naomi was certainly not surprised to see the pattern continue the same as it ever had.

What did surprise her was just how much the manhunt hijacked her own mind. Worst of all, there was simply no way she could avoid it even if she wanted to, what with their faces splashed across every news report, their names on every list of internet trending topics: Raymond Reddington and Elizabeth Keen, hashtag ModernDayBonnieAndClyde.

But she didn't want to avoid it, not really. Her morbid curiosity drove her to the very same outlets she usually loathed, just to feed her newfound addiction.

The déjà vu of it all turned her stomach. It kept her up at night. The crimes Keen was accused of besides killing the Attorney General were just so drastic and sudden.

Naomi didn't know Keen well at all personally, but she knew enough of her essence, knew her backstory in a way that very few other people did. She knew Raymond's backstory intimately, and she knew the other players well enough to know that there was more to this story than meets the eye.

It didn't make sense that Keen would commit elaborate terrorist attacks, especially on behalf of her long-dead mother's home country. Impulsively shooting someone? That seemed more likely, coming from a woman who would stab a person in the neck with a pen or decide on a whim whether to let an innocent but inconvenient person live or die.

Whether Keen was guilty of all of it or none of it or somewhere in between, she was being set up to take the fall for something bigger than herself.

Just like Raymond.

Naomi's suspicions were confirmed in her mind beyond a shadow of a doubt when the smug face of director of National Clandestine Services flashed across her television screen. Peter Kotsiopulos, Mr. Sanctimonious himself… Naomi should have known the day he interrogated her two decades ago that he was CIA.

His words reeked of damage control. Naomi couldn't be sure, but she strongly suspected that the blackmail documents the bastard was trying so hard to disavow and discredit were exactly what Raymond was accused of stealing so long ago.

For the first time, she understood. Even woefully out of date, the information was so damning that it surely would have caused utter desolation twenty-odd years ago when it was still fresh and new.

Why, though, would Raymond wait so long to leak it? Why go through so much turmoil if he had the key to put an end to everything all along?

Unless he didn't actually have the documents all those years ago.

 _Elizabeth_ had them. And now that they were working together, he was finally able to put them to use.

Still, he played his biggest bargaining chip on only the _possibility_ of saving her from her own actions, rather than himself.

Everything, always for her.

He'd spent _decades_ trying to prevent this very thing from happening, and now months trying frantically to undo it, if there was any chance left at all. It was fascinating, wondering whether he could pull it off. Naomi couldn't bring herself to look away.

Frank stormed over to turn off the television, disgust plain on his face, but Naomi snatched up the remote control right before his hand closed around it.

"Do you mind? I don't want to miss this."

"I'm sick of seeing your ex and his terrorist girlfriend's face plastered all over the news."

"It looks like she might get exonerated."

"That's bullshit. Why should someone like her get a second chance?"

Naomi stared at him, half-shocked at his vehemence. "You realize she saved my life. Yours, too."

"Is that supposed to mean something to me?"

"It should," she said. "You know, I don't think she's really responsible for all of it."

"Based on what?" he asked, incredulous. Irritable. Inexplicably defensive.

Frank hated Raymond with every fiber of his being and he hated that she was still interested in following his story even more. Naomi shook her head and turned her attention back to the screen.

"You wouldn't understand."

"What, was he set up, too? Is that what you're saying?" he spat. "He's a fucking monster, Naomi! They're both monsters. What does it matter if—"

"I think I know what I'm talking about a hell of a lot more than you do," she said, her voice clipped and cold. "Look, I'm saying it's the truth, I'm not saying you have to like it."

Frank swept off in a huff; Naomi breathed a sigh of relief and turned up the volume on the television. She really didn't want to miss a single word.


End file.
